Hello and thanks for stopping by! My name is Angela. I am a scientist, wife, cat-mom, and fitness enthusiast. This page is my personal blog, and you will find a range of topics, centered around healthy living. Why “The Chicken Scoop”? Well, when I started this blog, we had just gotten a small flock of chickens and the name just stuck! I hope you enjoy your visit!

5 Struggles With 21 Day Fix Extreme

Apparently I have a tough time with strict weight loss challenges. I made it a whopping 2 full days on the 21 Day Fix Extreme (21DFE)! There were a few things I just wasn’t prepared for when starting 21DFE, especially with the holiday weekend only 3 days into the challenge. You would think having accountability partners would help but it didn’t stop me from slipping up all weekend.

1: Eating Out

Rob and I tend to eat out a lot on the weekend because we are always on the go. I mentioned that the booklet has a Dining Out guide but that is only in the original 21 Day Fix. I guess 21DFE is supposed to be more strict and assumes you won’t eat out for the full 3 weeks.

The dining guide for the original plan suggests taking your green cup with you to measure portions. I want to make permanent changes in my life and that does not include bringing measuring cups to restaurants. I did my best trying to think about what would fit, but I usually couldn’t get the right number of each container by the end of the day (usually too many blues and not enough yellows).

2: Alcohol

I really don’t drink that much but with the holiday, I had a few more than normal. 21 Day Fix allows you to swap a yellow container for a glass of wine 3 times per week (and not all in one day!). Again, this was an abnormal weekend but I didn’t like the guilty feeling like I was cheating. I don’t want to feel guilty about enjoying myself.

3: Scheduling Conflicts

Again, Rob and I are always on the go on the weekends from the time we get up to the time we go to bed. We don’t plan it this way, it just kind of happens. With the three day weekend, I missed 2 workouts because I just wasn’t home! We often meet friends and family for breakfast so doing it before we leave the house sometimes isn’t even an option if I want to get 8 hours of sleep. This is why I usually schedule my rest days for the weekends, or just try to get enough walking to make up for the lack of a strict workout.

4: Low Fat Nutrition

I am a big fan of low carb, high fat diets and am planning on going full on Low Carb as soon as I can clean out my cabinets. It goes hand-in-hand with the Paleo/Primal diet that I have been researching for years and encourages increased fat loss.

The nutritional plan that came with 21 Day Fix is not low carb. Each level includes 3 cups of fruit per day! I also get 4 carbohydrates/starches per day, sending me even higher. Additionally, fat is reduced due to the fact that I can only have 1 blue per day (healthy fats like nuts, cheese, etc.) This is completely opposite to how I normally like to eat and actually has been causing my afternoon headaches and drowsiness to return.

5: Lack of Wiggle Room

I understand that this is the 21 Day Fix, but it is often emphasized that you can repeat it as many times as you have to in order to lose all the weight you need to. It also gives plans for weight maintenance so it is obviously implying that it could be long term. With the strictness, I couldn’t see me following it for more than a few days at a time. I want to lose weight but I also want to live and enjoy life!

I know a lot of the things I listed are personal struggles that not everyone will have with 21 Day Fix Extreme. I am just pointing out things that I didn’t expect to be so hard so quickly. Also, if I saw it as a simple 21 day thing and not looking for long-term solutions to weight maintenance then I might do better with the restrictions. I am going to continue to play with the containers and try all of the workouts (I actually really like them so far!). I will keep you all updated, including what I enjoy about it! Coming soon!

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13 comments to 5 Struggles With 21 Day Fix Extreme

Hi hi! 21DFE does assume you will go hard for 21 days and move into maintenance or back to 21DF where you DO have those built in treats, so to speak. Extreme isn’t necessarily meant to be the long term, just the next level and then move into maintenance or keep on trucking. Chat with your coach about some ways you can change up how the containers work. I’m a coach and I’ll be the first one to note I changed things up a little bit. Just some thoughts! I think it’s really awesome how transparent you’re being. No guilt! Keep on trucking. Can’t wait to hear how this week goes!

Hey Morgan! I am definitely going to continue with the containers, even if I do the whole low carb thing. There are some great benefits to using them! Like you said, I just need to change it up to work for me in the long term! Thanks for the advice and clarification! 🙂

I’m not a big fan of anything “extreme” when it comes to diets, even if it’s just for 21 days. I think either my body or my mind would rebel at the idea of having to fit food into all those containers. So funny that you wrote about this right now. I just saw the infomercial for the first time the other day. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about 🙂

I only ordered the “Extreme” because that was what my friend was doing and I wanted to have the same workout videos as her. I agree, I’m not normally an “extreme challenge” person. Leading up to the challenge, I saw the infomercial like 5 times! It was on every morning! Ha!

I mentioned that I’d looked at this several times (the original) and never sprung for the money cos a) I figured that I could measure using measuring cups rather than buying containers and b) I already had so many BB programmes to follow for fitness.

I read more into this programme since you were talking. I’m probably wrong but I think my level is 2 blues (I’m a shorty, so even though I’m packing quite a lot of heft, I still am at the lowest level) and I can’t get even ONE.

I don’t like fruit. I’d prefer veg.

Then, I’m lazy, which is funny because I’m currently not working, so I have all the time in the world to prep.

I don’t get to eat out but I have still struggled eating the whole foods. By that I mean, I’ve gotten into a bad way of using organic Canadian bacon or gluten free chicken strips (meaning gf coating, which is delicious, btw) as meat sources. Veg isn’t too hard as I like it and I can whittle out carbs (or not) but FAT? Oh, man. I hae been hitting that too hard. Let me tell you: even though I only tried to do the amounts of 21DF with measuring what I’m eating (within reason, then it goes sideways at night), I’ve learnt what I consider a not-so-bad high fat (lo carb) is actually INSANELY HIGH fat and then, I end up eating some carbs (like 200g, which isn’t good AT ALL but less than many Americans).

My ramble is to say: if nothing else, it showed me that I’m being a lot crazier with my food than I realised and THAT is why I can’t get smaller than a size 8 at my stubby-height. You mean it’s ME????